They've been having problems getting this movie off the ground since the beginning and I think they should have just left it alone. Somethings just aren't meant to be and maybe this is one of those things.

Will Kaneda be played by a Japanese (out of respect snd relevance to the material-the story is set in Japan with Japanese characters in it) or a Korean actor (they are more famous and their proficiency in English give them an edge over other Asian actors)?

There seem to be a flood of Korean actors in Hollywood atm, playing every kind of Asians in existence. Surely letting just any Asian actor playing any other Asian characters is as offensive as letting a caucasian play as one.

So why not let a real Japanese actor play Akira then? Or any other Japanese actors in a movie that involves Japanese characters in a Japanese setting? Memoirs of A Geisha have Chinese actresses playing the lead roles. The live action movie of the anime about street racing, Initial D, have Hong Kong and Taiwanese actors playing the lead Japanese characters. Dragon Ball...well, let's not touch on that one. Keep that one away as far as possible.

Have you even watched Akira? It's actually one of the few animes were the characters are not meant to look 'westernised'...yet Hollywood is changing it anyway! All the characters have Japanese names, mannerisms and live in bloody Tokyo!

Then get right on it ... you might see then that westernizing its plot makes no sense whatsoever .

Akira pretty much mirror and satirizes the post ww2 bombing japanese society , and touch a few subject in the manga as well such as american interferences .

Not even a 1% of it would resonate with a representation of New york or whatever ...

PS : And even with japanese animes not looking realistic and with japanese looking character , most of their themes and cultural alusions are very japan centric or asian centric ... just whitewashing the whole thing , is beyond ridiculous .

Hollywood is pathetic. Here's an idea: make GOOD movies, and they'll become cult hits and people will keep watching them and buying them for years. Make shitty whitewashed movies with huge ad campaigns and they *might* turn a profit in the first weekend, but after 3 days word will have spread about how shit it is and if you haven't made your money by then you never will. Hmm... which should it be?

I don't like Akira (I know that puts me way outside the mainstream) and I don't think that all whitewashing is bad. Part of the reason anime is still niche in America is because certain cultural elements don't mesh well. So there is a logic to why certain elements of an adaption might need to be changed, to make a story more relatable to Western audiences.

But that said, something that's definitively Japanese in nature will never translate well. Akira is one of those properties. So whitewashing (or Westernizing as the more appropriate term) won't help it become a good adaptation the way The Departed was of Infernal Affairs.

A better candidate for Americanization would be something like Ghost in the Shell, where the team is already made up of a heterogeneous group of characters. So changing names/races or whatever adds to the dynamic instead of cheapening it.

Hollywood can kiss my ass! Just goes to show nothing will ever change! As George said, why buy a famous Japanese anime about Japanese characters in a Japan...and then go ahead and change it all up?! They obviously bought the rights to get all the millions of people interested in Akira to watch it...just for them to change it!

I was disgusted when I watched the frankly horrible The King of Fighters' movie ....and the main character of the series who's the leader of a Japanese fighting team who's name is Kyo Kusanagi they cast as Sean Faris!!!!!

Damn, why not just go the whole hog and change the name of the bloody film to 'Roger'! lol

Whenever I see the accusation of 'Whitewashing' the hypocritical and offensive nature honestly makes me fell sick to my stomach, why? many reasons.

First, how about we look at India's Bollywood, does anyone complain about 'brownwashing' when white characters get replaced by Indians in their adaptations? no, they'd be laughed to their grave, or how about we adapt one of Shakespeare's plays, but instead hire a black cast (protip: there are several), is that racist? no it's apparently progressive!

The upset of having a white cast in a Western adaptation of an Eastern anime baffles me. For one, America is a majority white nation, secondly I challenge you to make your own cast of American 'A-list' south east Asian actors, along the ranks of Leonardo Di Caprio and Kirsten Stuart, remember Ken Watanabe is already stated to be in the film. No one in their right mind would cast unknown actors in lead rolls in a project this colossal.

Another thing to note is that Akira is literally the modern poster child for colour-blind casting, which means casting characters irregardless of race, oh but there was always controversy when a white actor took a role with a different raced character in the source material, again colour-blind casting was seen as progressive.

I should point out, that I've seen Akira, and I loved every minute, it was honestly the only Anime I've ever enjoyed. I am also fully aware that the new adaptation will blow, /end rant. It's just the the term White-washing has always rubbed me the wrong way, as it implies only white actors are replacing the role of someone of another race, when the opposite goes on and nobody bats an eyelid. Mind you, ideally it would of course be best if all characters were cast to there respective race in regards to the source material, but as I said, that just isn't going to happen for an adaptation of Akira and in turn labelling the producers and casting crew as racist is just irrational.

Hypocritical ? i dont see that many people having issues with Internal Affairs giving birth to the departed , and calling it whitewashed , since it is , whatever each and everyone's preference , an excellent adaptation . Nor did we heard complaints about Speed Racer ... at least not for those reasons , only stuff like names and actor are fully westernized .

And most western people dont even know about the reverse phenomenon in other countries , so why indeed would they bring it up ?

There would also need to be multiple debate about the qualities of those movies , as opposed to holywood tendencies to just dump and squeeze all of the original contents .

Hollywood can't even bother to respect material coming from the US itself , such as Avatar the last Airbender

The original Akira anime and manga are idiosyncratically Japanese in its vision of a nation , it's modern (at least back then) society , and some of the destructive scars left by historical events .

As much as you wanna make it a (blindly) color and race only issue , we all know that said "whitewashing" goes way further than casting choices .

It is such an ill chosen movie project to defend , when at least stuff like DBZ hardly use element of japanese culture , beyond vastly derivated folktales , and storytelling techniques , and could indeed be easily "whitewashed" . The movie sucked because it didnt even respect 1% of the original property , and had an horrible casting .

But Akira ? Unless by some miracle they manage to fix the script enough to at least replace some of issues steeming from the ghost and fears of nuclear devastation , by Post 9-11 symbolism (and even that is a big nonsensical stretch) ... i dont see how you can translate it properly in an american , or western , based setting .

They can't even have enough imagination , to feature a few white actors in its original setting and tone , it is indeed foreboding cyberjunk cgi crap borrowing the most useless part from the original , and slicing it up poorly with every convention since the Matrix or whatever successful cyberpunk movie .

'Hypocritical ? i dont see that many people having issues with Internal Affairs giving birth to the departed , and calling it whitewashed , since it is , whatever each and everyone's preference , an excellent adaptation .'

I have no idea what you're trying to say here, can you explain?

I don't think anyone honestly cared about what you see as whitewashing in regards to speed racer, a children's cartoon from the 1960's. Again, you don't seem to understand what an adaptation is, it's hardly malicious? Also, I think it's original audience were old enough to understand what an adaptation is (hardly a foregin concept dohohoho).

So it's a problem when x culture makes their own adaptation of y culture's media, but not the other way around due to ignorance?

As the beads of sweat roll and reddening of face occur, so comes the accusation of racism, precious.

I'm not defending the movie in the slightest, I said it will blow in my comment, (but then again you're arguing from perception).

I see an adaptation of Akira as possible, (again, I know this one will blow) Plot and story wise there was absolutely nothing to suggest it couldn't be depicted through a different culture with minor changes, and if you wan't to see a 'western' interpretation of the concept of neo-Tokyo look no further than Blade Runner, it wouldn't be a stretch to claim it's success would it?